


we carry these days on our own

by januarys



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post Virmire, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-07 23:57:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/januarys/pseuds/januarys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ME1. If the Normandy possessed a heart, Kaidan believed it would be heavy among the noise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we carry these days on our own

**Author's Note:**

> Well, every relationship needs to start somewhere right? This was actually the very first thing I ever wrote for this pairing, just to get a feel of them really. I dusted it off, made a few changes and decided to post it here. My first playthrough of the game was going to end with Ashley making it through, but for the sake of torturing Shepard _well_... (the rest is history).
> 
> Hope you like it.

If the Normandy possessed a heart, Kaidan believes it would be heavy among the noise.

The void Ashley leaves behind is a wide, hollow one. It stretches out beyond possibility, taints those around with its total emptiness. For the first time, Kaidan feels all of his thirty-two years weigh heavily on his shoulders and it makes him weary.

He wanders through the Normandy, the silence within its walls being further proof that Ashley is  _gone._ He tries to ignore the glances from the crew. Familiar faces lined with something like contempt,  _blame_ , and Kaidan can’t fault them for it, not at all.

An uncomfortable heat dances behind his eyes as he tries to think of the variables, tries to think back to those moments before it all.  _Maybe_  he could have done something different, _maybe.._.

Kaidan presses his palms into his eyes, takes a deep breath, and comes up blank.

His feet carry him to the elevator and down to the vast cargo hold, empty and dark save for the dim blue glow of Ashley’s terminal. His chest tightens when he sees the cluttered order of things on her work bench, the low sound of a century’s old pop song providing white noise to the moment. He grips the edge of the bench, fingers tightening around the cool metal, and hangs his head.

She’s gone. Just like that.  _Gone._

There won’t be any more easy conversations on those long elevator rides through the Citadel, or her familiar presence at his six during battle. No more huffs of triumph over a well-placed headshot or her infectious delight over a new hard suit requisition. Kaidan eyes her worn out poetry book sitting next to her rifle and places his unsteady fingers over the embossed lettering on the cover, his heart in his throat and—

 _one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will_   _to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield_

—and no more impromptu poetry recitals as they hurtled along an anonymous planet inside of the Mako. No more sleepless nights after a mission debrief, where they would write up their reports to the sound of the ships engines in the background, Shepard by their side despite signing off on his own hours before—

He looks up and Shepard is suddenly right beside him. All that Kaidan sees is defeat.

Defeat is the image of a man who has lost too much, who has lost his way forward. It shows in the slump of his usually proud posture, the furrow on his brow, the far-off look in his eyes. Kaidan notices how Shepard’s hands, always so steady, tremble at his sides.

Kaidan isn’t a fool, the furthest thing from it. He saw the way they are—  _were_  with each other. The close proximity between the two of them during a simple conversation, the smile that played on her lips as he walked away, when her eyes were impossibly wide and Shepard’s smile so very coy as loose lips revealed veiled thoughts as they saw the shimmering Citadel nebula for the first time.

The lump in Kaidan’s throat grows heavier as he thinks that he’s  _taken that away from him, away from her,_  and if he could drown in the guilt he would let the waves take him under without question.

Shepard takes a breath beside him and reaches for the book, fingers brushing against Kaidan’s softly. The touch is enough to make Kaidan pull back but the fleeting warmth along his skin will stay with him for the following hours. Shepard doesn’t seem to notice as he picks up the novel to hold it in front of him, his thumb brushing the cover as Kaidan had done moments before.

His grip on the book tightens, his trembling hands visibly shaking now, and Kaidan doesn’t know what to do.

“It was the right choice,” says Shepard, his voice rough from disuse. “It  _was.”_

Kaidan lets out a breath and shakes his head, the heat behind his eyes threatening to burst forward at any given moment. “There is no right choice for something like this, sir. You know that.”

The song on Ashley’s terminal switches and a soft guitar melody rises between them. Shepard’s mouth curls up at the corner and he looks at Kaidan, brilliant eyes shining. Kaidan can’t bring himself to look away.

“She hates to admit that she likes this kind of music,” Shepard talks in present tense, Kaidan notices. “And if I tell anyone, she threatened to modify my armour’s HUD to play hanar pornography. On loop.”

Kaidan chuckles, if only to relieve the tension inside, but sobers up when he can suddenly feel the spike of the other man’s biotics. It’s something that Kaidan has become easily attuned to.

He quickly pushes back from the bench and gets a hold onto Shepard’s wrists, the book of poetry filling the short distance between them. A flare of blue shimmers to nothing on Shepard’s skin, and Kaidan tries not to notice how warm the other man is.

They breathe together for a while, Kaidan’s grip on Shepard’s wrists not relinquishing their hold. Shepard is closer, closer than he’s been to Kaidan before. In that moment though, Kaidan only cares about putting Shepard back together again.

He’s not one for picking up pieces, for holding together the broken parts, but this is  _Shepard_. Anything Kaidan feels right now is nothing compared to what Shepard must be feeling, not by a long shot.

His hands travel up Shepard’s arms tentatively, his palms smoothing over old scars to grip Shepard’s broad shoulders. Shepard seems to relax into the touch and Kaidan takes that as a good sign.

“Shepard…  _John_ ,” he uses Shepard’s first name as a crutch, something to keep the other man grounded among the stars. “This isn’t over yet. Not by a long shot. The last thing that she—that  _Ashley_  would want you to do is break, okay?”

Shepard watches him with  _something_  in his eyes that Kaidan hasn’t seen before, not towards him anyway. He swallows and tries not to think of how damn  _close_  he is to Shepard.

It’s… dizzying to say the least.

“Besides sir, she would probably kick your sorry ass for acting like this.”

Shepard lets out a chuckle and relief blossoms through Kaidan’s chest like a shot of whisky. Kaidan squeezes his shoulders once more before he pulls away. Shepard places the novel back down onto the bench, fingers lingering on the cover for a few seconds, before he turns back to Kaidan.

The small smile on his lips doesn’t make Kaidan’s heart skip, it  _doesn’t_. That’s what he tries to convince himself as Shepard reaches over to power off Ashley’s terminal; the cargo bay darkened once again, the music that filtered between them silenced.

“I…” Shepard says softly, his voice cutting through the darkness. “I was about to write out the mission report. Figured you would want to compare notes, make sure my grammar was right. If you feel like it, obviously.”

Kaidan doesn’t feel like it, doesn’t feel like sorting through the memories of those hours where the Virmire sun was searing his face, and the thought that he wasn’t going to get off the planet alive a surprisingly humble one.

It’s Shepard though, and with everything that’s happened, everything leading to  _this_  moment is something they’ll share until their deaths, untimely or no.

Simply put, Kaidan would follow Shepard into hell. No question.

So Kaidan nods despite the darkness and they walk to the elevator together. Their shoulders brush as they stand side by side on the way to the mess, and he briefly allows himself to relish in the warmth of it all.

He can compartmentalise later. There’s always later.

The defeat that had settled in Shepard before has disappeared and Kaidan looks over at him to see that familiar grin planted on his face, determination anew in his bright eyes.

As the door opens, Kaidan thinks that the heavy heart of the Normandy is a little lighter.


End file.
